We had not expected that the Hmong village wedding we went to yesterday would be such a blatant business arrangement.
Despite 16 years living here full time in Northern Thailand, speaking Thai and understanding a little of some of the local northern languages, and having been to many different indigenous festivals and ceremonies over the years, it was still a shock. I think the costumes lulled us into a false sense of expectation.
The wedding was high up in a Hmong village behind Doi Inthanon, in the foothills of Op Luang here in Northern Thailand. The drive up the mountain is basically 16kms on a rutted, rough, narrow dirt road, 30-40 degree incline all the way , nothing over 2nd gear and a lot of loose dust and sand on an unguarded road with nauseating drops down the side. I didn't look. Best not to. Some Thai family members didn't make the wedding cos their vehicles didn't have the required high chassis to get up the mountain. All of which means that this village is largely cut off from western influence. But sadly not remote enough to deter the Christian missionaries, who have "converted" this village. Big Sigh
And so we expected music and dancing and amazing costumes. And arrived surprised to find both the bride and groom in normal clothes, working their butts off. This is the mother of the bride, organizing the collective cooking and distribution of the meat. She had no active role in the wedding beyond organizing, cooking and arranging the new ceremonial clothes.
And here's the bride helping to organize the meal for the men of the village, which is in honour of the deal being struck. While the bride and her mother, aunts etc were outside cooking and preparing the meal, the men of the village met with the groom (my Thai foster-son and technically my Thai daughter's uncle) to agree the Bride Price. The business of the wedding was for men only, and we were not invited or allowed to photograph it.
My daughter and I, being on a par with royalty due to our white skin and representing the groom's family-mother, were invited to eat in the cool of the house with all the men of the village. Only us and the bride ate with the men, while the women and children worked and ate outside. To say that the meal was uncomfortable would be putting it mildly.
After the meal there was the real business of the wedding, attended only by the men of the village and the groom. It was to pay the Bride Price which had been agreed before lunch. The bride attended this part and was then ceremonially photographed in new Hmong traditional clothes which had been made for her and the groom by her mother's family. After which there was a brief time for photographs outside, and then the groom and his guests and the bride were required to leave the village, since the businesses had been successfully transacted.
And so we had a hairy, challenging slide-drive down the mountain. Breathed a sigh of relief & gratitude when we hit the bitumen, and were finally able to process the day after fresh coffee and icecream had been applied.
"So", I casually asked my half-Thai 13 year old daughter as I drove, "What did you think of all that?"
And then there was a long silence. I let the silence rest and kept driving. Finally, she managed to spit it out: "They sold her, mama. For money. And she didn't get to really be a bride. She worked harder than anyone." The shattering of the pink-disney-dream is painful to listen to, and so I just sat through some more silent time.
I tried not to react nor jump on my feminist horse waiting eagerly, and simply breathed. I had to turn my western head off. And then I spoke quietly about the hardships the village faces in the dry season with little water and no transport, and how cut off they are in the wet. About there being one less woman to help cook at the next wedding, or to look after a dying grandma, to mind the children or to help harvest the crops for the Royal Project; about how long it takes to make the traditional clothes by hand and how the village is, in one sense, depleted and poorer for the loss of this young, strong woman. And how in so many ways it's reasonable and fair that the family and the village be compensated. Because her children and grandchildren will not be part of that community either. I finally said to my daughter that in some ways the bride price reflects the incredible value of this young woman and her role. And that no one pays to inherit another man in the village here.
It was a somber drive home, partly from fatigue and partly due to the thoughts bouncing around in my head. I suddenly felt the limits and smallness of western feminist thinking. I HATE the idea of a woman being transacted, and yet I can SEE and FEEL how only the things of value are transacted here. And that perhaps we don't really "get" anything about another culture until we live in it.
I deliberately didn't tag this post as "travel" cos it's just our normal daily life. #mythailand #mythailaife
And I remain haunted by the children straddling these worlds. Absorbing. Watching. Waiting. Curious but also afraid. I remain encouraged that as we LIVE and REFUSE TO JUDGE one another, that we are all enriched.
